Tag: Noah Gray

Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce is excited about his new running mate in the tight end room.

Chiefs rookie TE Noah Gray has been one of the early standouts this offseason, receiving praise from Patrick Mahomes, Eric Bieniemy, Andy Reid and now Kelce. It’s rare for a fifth-round pick to receive this amount of hype out of training camp and he’s done a good job to stay grounded and humble throughout.

Kelce, however, is ready to help push the Noah Gray hype train off the tracks.

“Oh yeah, he’s going to help us this year, man,” Kelce told reporters of Gray on Wednesday. “I can’t wait until the world sees what that guy can do, man. He’s doing an unbelievable job of learning this offense. There is so much that you have to do in this offense as a tight end and especially the move guy — and not just the Y tight end — but being the U. Your knowledge, you have be understanding what everyone is capable of doing — the running backs, the wide receivers, the fullbacks. Not only that but (you have to) know the tight end position.”

Gray’s early mastery of the position, from Kelce’s view, has to do with how he’s attacking the playbook since he’s arrived in Kansas City. He also feels that the rookie has done a good job taking coaching and taking advantage of all of his reps. From a bird’s eye view, it appears that Gray is doing everything right when it comes to his preparation.

“I think what Noah (Gray) is doing a great job of is getting in that playbook,” Kelce said. “And being able to go out there on the snap of the ball and play with confidence and play fast. From there, it’s just every rep — every rep you get you learn something. And you can watch other guys and figure out how you want to attack certain defenses with those reps. I think he’s doing a great job of just going to work here in training camp, and then trying to become the best football player he can be.”

Kelce has always had a natural feel for finding the soft spot in coverage. KC Star beat reporter Sam McDowell pointed out that Gray appears to have a similar type of feel for getting open. For Kelce, that natural feel is all about having a good understanding of the game and what the defense is doing on a snap-to-snap basis.

“It’s as simple as understanding the game,” Kelce said. “Understanding what the defense is presenting. When you understand the voids and the zones that they’re in, you understand where to go and where to be and when to be there. I think Noah (Gray) has a great feel for that. It’s something that you can try and teach, but you really have to get somebody that is confident in their ability to go out there and do it, right? That’s what Noah brings to the table — his confidence and his ability to be there and his accountability in that aspect.”

Gray’s confidence and understanding of the game are getting a lot of credit for his early success. Kelce also thinks that Gray’s past experiences playing quarterback — just like his own — gives him a better understanding of where he needs to be to help Patrick Mahomes out the most.

“I think he played a little quarterback in high school,” Kelce said. “Any time you’re back there and you’re reading defenses, you start to feel where you want guys to go, right? I was a quarterback, I wasn’t very good, but I understood where I wanted guys to be versus certain coverages. I think that has naturally just made me more comfortable when I see a certain defense, where I need to be and how I can make it easier on the quarterback to get there.”

Whatever is informing Gray’s rookie breakout, Kelce is excited for the fans in the Chiefs Kingdom to get a chance to see what the young tight end has to offer. It won’t be long now, with the first preseason game just 10 days away for Kansas City.

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One of the earliest standout rookies during the offseason program for the Kansas City Chiefs has been fifth-round draft pick Noah Gray.

He’s impressed Chiefs HC Andy Reid and built a repertoire with star QB Patrick Mahomes, combining for a number of standout moments during team drills at practice. The former Duke Blue Devil isn’t taking much credit for his offseason success, though. He first noted that having Organized Team Activities (OTAs) made all the difference in the world — a luxury that last year’s rookies didn’t have.

“OTAs was really a blessing for us,” Gray told reporters on Saturday. “I don’t know how the rookies last year did it, so I think we’ve got to give a lot of credit to those guys who are sophomores now in the league. But going through OTAs really helped just from a knowledge standpoint, just understanding the basic concepts that this offense asks you to know. So, it was definitely a huge help from that perspective.”

On top of acquiring all that extra knowledge at OTAs, Gray credits his teammates with helping his early development. To this point, the Chiefs have mostly engaged in what Andy Reid describes as “passing camps.” Meaning, the team hasn’t yet worked on blocking. That’s an area where Gray knows he’ll need improvements. He’ll continue leaning on his peers in those moments.

“What I need to work on, just everything,” Gray said. “Out here today there were a lot of things that in OTAs I was asked to work on that I need to keep building on. Route-running, blocking—we haven’t put pads on yet but when blocking comes that’s going to be something that’s going to need to continue to progress. But there are a lot of things in the route-running game that I still need to get better at. I’m still asking questions. Jody (Fortson) has been phenomenal, when Trav (Kelce) gets back he’s been a great teacher and mentor, and really all the other tight ends like Nick (Keizer), all those other guys, Evan (Baylis) and Blake (Bell), they’re just really a blessing to be teammates and be a part of. So, really a credit to those guys for helping me progress along this journey.”

Gray didn’t get a chance to go to Travis Kelce’s inaugural Tight End University Summit this offseason because he was hosting a football camp of his own. The thing is, Gray gets a chance to get on the field and work with Kelce often in practice. The rookie isn’t taking that fact for granted and is doing his best to gain as much knowledge from the veteran as possible.

“It’s tremendous. Like I said on draft day, I don’t think there’s anywhere else I’d rather be in the country,” Gray said. “To be able to learn under Travis Kelce, one of the best tight ends in the league, right now it’s a blessing. To come out here and to be able to gain that knowledge from him and to learn from him every day and to be able to visualize and watch him on the field, that’s been something that’s been extremely key to me coming out and being able to execute my assignment. Even guys like Blake, guys like Nick, those guys have been in the system and they’ve been tremendous in helping me out with my development and just being able to come out here and execute what I need to do.”

Even with the early success that he’s seen, Gray is doing his best not to get a big head. Mahomes had some high praise for the rookie tight end back in OTAs.

“Noah has been really good,” Mahomes said during OTAs. “I think he has a veteran-type skill set where he knows how to get himself open even if it’s not exactly what the play is designed to do. He knows how to get his eyes back and how to get on the quarterback’s timing.”

Gray’s response to these comments was quite humble and more reminiscent of something you’d hear from a 10-year veteran.

“It’s a blessing that he thinks that of me, but I also understand that I need to come out here and keep grinding, keep hitting the playbook and keep practicing hard,” Gray said. “From a mentality standpoint, it just means that I need to keep doing the things that I know that I can do. It’s great that a teammate thinks that of me, but to be able to come out here and be the best teammate that I can be, that’s what means the most to me.”

No matter the success that Gray finds at training camp over the next several weeks, he won’t be satisfied with it. He’ll keep going, doing what he’s already done to improve and stand out early on in the offseason program. He’ll be the best teammate that he can be and he’ll keep leaning on the tight end room for support and knowledge.

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The Kansas City Chiefs have a rookie draft pick in the tight end room for the first time since 2015.

The Chiefs have long sought a solid No. 2 tight end behind Travis Kelce, but to this point, they’ve struggled to find one. After five consecutive 1000-yard receiving seasons by Kelce, the team placed a renewed emphasis on finding a No. 2 tight end this season. The team traded up in the draft to select Duke TE Noah Gray in the fifth round. Typically, expectations would be low for a fifth-round draft pick, but Gray already seems to be ascending the depth chart.

On Tuesday, Kelce spoke with the Kansas City media and had a chance to provide his first impression of his new understudy. So far it sounds like Gray is ahead of where a normal rookie might be during this point of the offseason.

“One of Coach Reid’s big things is bring energy and show your personality, and so far he’s done both,” Kelce said of Gray. “It’s been a lot of fun so far. 83 (Noah Gray), he’s got a very unique way of understanding football. He’s years ahead of being a rookie, which is awesome. You can kind of give him pointers, and he’s running with everything.”

It’s been a while since Kelce was the young tight end in the room. He might not always act like it, but he’s the veteran in Kansas City now. He has some wisdom to pass onto Gray, just as former Chiefs TE Anthony Fasano passed that same wisdom onto him.

“Just the confidence of the game,” Kelce explained. “I think that’s the biggest thing that Fasano gave me, was that if you put the work in, if you understand the game mentally, you can play so much faster. I think Noah has a great understanding of the game. He has a good understanding of what defenses are being presented in front of him, and that’s half the battle, knowing what the other side of the ball is doing so you have an idea of what you should be doing. And yeah, he’s hit the ground running ever since we started.”

Gray has earned opportunities with the first-team offense opposite Kelce during OTAs and minicamp. We’ll see if that persists once the pads come on during training camp, but early indications show that Gray is carving out a role for himself in 2021.

“He’s absorbing all the information that the coaches are giving him, that he’s hearing from other players, and he’s having a lot of success out there on the field,” Kelce said of Gray. “He’s going to definitely help us this year.”

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